Zombie (16 page)

“Someone is a homosexual if they have their right ear pierced and heterosexual if they have their left ear pierced?” I ask.

“I have my left nipple pierced,” Zink says.

“Nipple?”

“Nipple.”

“Does the left and right thing apply to nipples too?”

“Don’t be a dick, Barks,” Zink says, thumbing his fly to be sure it is closed.

“Do you know what people are saying about this bathroom?”

“Yes.” Zink’s smile lights up his face. “Funny how a fear-based rumor will not only make them believe it, but also encourage them to perpetuate it. Curiosity is killer. It’s this whole predictable thing.”

“I don’t understand.”

“They were just in here. Together. And everyone saw them. They came in together and they left together.”

“But they didn’t do anything in here like that.”

“No one else knows that.”

Neither of us says anything. No follow-up questions.

We walk to the sinks next to the urinals and stand shoulder to shoulder, staring at the other’s reflection in the mirror.

“How the hell do you get your knots so perfect?” I ask, pointing at his necktie knotted perfectly in a Windsor.

“It’s pretty badass,” he says, reaching his hand up and unclipping the tie from his collar. He holds the mutant, pre-knotted, clip-on
tie in his hand like a recently caught fish and shakes it. There is no loop at the top, holding the knot. The knot simply stands alone, allowing the rest of the tie to dangle down. “Clip-on, Barks. Motherfucking clip-on.”

“Did your Dad ever teach you how to tie a knot?”

“He was always more interested in teaching me how to block penalty kicks.”

“It’s pretty easy, if you would like to learn.”

“How can it possibly be easier than a clip-on?” he asks, and flicks the clasp at the back of the knot.

“Tying a really good knot is way more important than a goddamn clip-on. It’s this whole thing,” I say, stealing Zink’s phrase.

“I like the knot you’re wearing. Teach me that one.”

I look at my Limp Dick and undo the knot, pulling it from around my neck.

He hands me his clip-on and I snap it over my collar—perfect fucking Windsor knot.

Zink says, “Everybody has a thing. Everyone has at least one thing. This is your thing.”

I say, “According to me, there are three types of necktie knots: the Windsor, the Half-Windsor, and the Limp Dick.”

I
n our religion class, Christian Awareness, a band kid in front of me, the one with all the acne, says my loafer’s look like moccasins. He calls me Pocahontas.

“Where are your braids, Pocahontas?” he says, picking a zit on his chin.

“Pocahontas liked to suck fat dick,” a soccer player says.

“Pucker those lips, Pocahontas,” a stoner kid says.

Mr. Vo stands at the front of the room filling in for Brother Larry who, we are told, has come down with
the bug
. No one is sure what that means.

“Language,” Mr. Vo says, pointing a fist at the stoner. “I don’t want to hear it anymore. Let’s be mature, okay, gentlemen.”

“Poor Pocahontas,” the band kid says, and kicks my chair.

“Mr. Jeremy Barker.” Mr. Vo looks at the classroom chart of names and points to an open seat in the back. He wears a light yellow tie with blue sailboats knotted in a Windsor. His vest is buttoned up and a gold clip holds his tie to his shirt. “Back of the class.”

I straighten my posture like a Marine, fearless-like, collect my belongings and switch seats. Semper Fi and all that shit.

“I will say this only one time,” Mr. Vo says, soft and low. “We don’t have a whole lot of time before you men go off to Reconciliation. I see here in Brother Larry’s assignment book that he asked you each to write a one-sentence statement beginning with the words: I am.” He walks along the back wall of the classroom as we turn in our seats to track him. “I want to hear what you men came up with.” He points with a fist to the first kid in my row. “You. Go.”

“I am the Orioles,” a student council kid says. “And I badly need relief pitching and better batting deep into the lineup.”

“I am the Ravens,” a football player says, punching the student council kid in the back. “Fuck baseball. Pussy sport.”

“I am doing your mom,” a lacrosse player says.

“I see we are taking this seriously,” Mr. Vo says. “Brother Larry will be thrilled.”

“I am laying a lot of pipe these days,” a drama club kid says, adjusting his knot, a Windsor.

“I am writing a novel,” a newspaper kid says.

“You are a fucking nerd,” the band kid with the acne says.

“I am a big time dealer,” a stoner kid says.

“I dealt your mom last night and she liked it,” a lacrosse player says.

“Lovely.” Mr. Vo rubs his eyes. “Gentlemen, this is unbecoming of a Hall man.”

“I am your biological daddy,” a football player tells the stoner.

“I am tripping my balls off,” the stoner says back.

“Let’s try you,” Mr. Vo says, pointing to Mykel. “What do you have for us?”

“I am chopography,” Mykel says.

No one says anything to Mykel.

“Chopography,” Mr. Vo says. He leans against the chalkboard, white dust covering the back of his vest. “What is that? Clearly, it’s not photography?”

“Chopography,” Mykel says. “I take pictures and then cut them together.”

“Like collage,” Mr. Vo says.

“Not really.” Mykel stretches back in his chair, extending his arms over his head, kicking his long legs out to the chair in front of him. “It’s more like dissection.”

“Interesting,” Mr. Vo says, rubbing his temples now, then points his fist at me and asks the same question.

Many things cross my mind. My women’s magazine collection hidden away in my closet, tucked away in the shells of empty board
game boxes. Mom leaving me for pills and leaving Dad for Carrefour. Dad and his knots. Rembrandt and his video. Dad disappearing. The great Zombie Apocalypse. And all the shit at school.

I say, “I am not who I used to be.”

T
he line for Reconciliation crawls out from the lecture hall and on to the sidewalk outside, funneling along the school. It reminds me of the dance sequence in Michael Jackson’s fourteen-minute music video for “Thriller”—a zombified, undead, shuffle of bodies. There is a leader, but it’s unknown to us in line, moving along as instructed. Following orders. The sky is overcast, symptomatic of an approaching rain, that sweet rain smell carried in on a sharp wind. I button up my sport coat. A teacher holds his hand palm up, checking for drops, but none found. Some kids wear their jackets over the shoulders on the hook of a finger. Some wear them like rich old ladies, draped over their shoulders. The teachers patrol the line, enforcing the dress code in that respect, zapping kids to attend detention after school with Brother Lee. Detention, as described by Jackson, is two hours in a classroom listening to Brother Lee lecture, nonstop, completely in Mandarin—the lecture topic unknown. Which sounds more like Hell than detention.

A teacher hands me a prompt—this tiny sheet of paper, a script that reads:

I look for the nearest teacher or brother or priests or someone, anyone, a Catholic at the very least, to flag down and explain to me in detail what I’m about to participate in. Questions come fast, questions about sins and confessing these sins to a complete stranger, in order to be prepared for Heaven. It reminded me of a body being prepped for surgery. The line snails forward. When I’m about halfway through, a door opens. Rembrandt. He adjusts his blue-rimmed glasses, exposing his fucked-up hands to me. He could be flashing his deformed hands or his penis; it’d feel no different. Mr. Rembrandt, the smug fuck, checks the sky again, before stepping out onto the sidewalk. We smile. We remember. Passing each other by the teacher’s parking lot. He looks down on me, but only because he’s taller.

“Mr. Barker,” he says. “Glad to see you outside when you’re supposed to be outside.” Mr. Rembrandt steps in line, excusing himself to the computer geek behind me who’s done nothing but recite his script from memory since we’ve been outside. The sweet pre-rain breeze picks up again, but this time delivers a sharp chemical stench. Same heavy antiseptic smell as Dad. It’s Rembrandt. “When your little script says
insert sins here
,” he says, pointing to the script, “what do you think you’ll say?”

“To be honest, I haven’t given it much thought. But one thing’s for sure, whatever sin I say, it won’t be any worse than what the priests have already heard at this school,” I say and fold the script in half, sliding it into my pocket.

Two jocks in front of me—one football, one soccer, both as indicated by the athletic letters on their letterman jackets—spontaneously trade punches like sparring partners. The jacked-up football jock pounds the soccer kid in the upper arm, which the soccer jock absorbs only to return with appropriate force, hitting him in the same location. This continues for a few more rounds in an organized fashion, before Mr. Rembrandt intercedes.

“My dear, dear boys,” he says, startling them, unaware that they were under surveillance. “Why must two educated and talented young men, such as yourselves, succumb to physical violence?” He
makes a
tisk-tisk-tisk
sound, like my mother used to do when I was a child. “Oh, absurdity of absurdities.”

The jocks apologize, their cheeks flushed red.

“What drives a man to allow himself to be hit repeatedly without question?”

The football jock says, “It’s a game, sir.”

“And how does one win a game like this?” he asks.

The soccer jock says, “It’s called
Deadarm
. It goes until someone quits.”

“Because they have a dead arm,” Mr. Rembrandt says. “Yes. I see.” He clears his throat and leans forward into my peripheral vision. “Have you ever played such a game, Mr. Barker?”

I can hear the computer geek behind me, still reciting the script to himself. There are no other teachers in sight and no one else who witnessed the jocks playing Deadarm. Words flee. He knows I’ve seen it. It’s the only explanation. Like a gift from God, the line shifts forward again, this time at a good clip, and funnels through the double-doors and into the lobby of the lecture hall and when I finally turn around, ready to retaliate, though I’m not sure with what, Mr. Rembrandt is gone.

Oh, absurdity of absurdities
.

T
he lecture hall is empty except for a few priests spread out, each in close conversation with a student. Priests make the Sign of the Cross. They bow their heads. They close their eyes. Some hold necklaces with big beads. Some hold their hands together in their laps. Sometimes they smile. Sometimes they nod, either in recognition or simply feigned understanding. They dispense penance like Pez—penance, a flashy word for punishment—some mutant alien shit.

Kids exit though the art studio behind the lecture hall, otherwise known as the penance palace. There, kids kneel. They recite different prayers, numerous times, like they’re memorizing lines in a play, repeating their way back into Heaven. There is a teacher monitoring the art studio/prayer palace, but not really monitoring. I can see kids quietly fucking around from the lecture hall, slapping each other in the middle of the back with open hands. Fucktards.

A priest in the front row motions to me—a pencil-thin priest with a neck beard and a messy mop of black hair. He’s a young guy, maybe a few years older than Jackson, and looks like if it weren’t for a standard all black uniform, he’d be a hopeless mess. He’s definitely more of a nerdy, virginal version of Jackson without any muscle and with a white collar. He sits in his chair the way the broom leans against the wall of our kitchen—stiff and patient.

I fumble in my pocket for my script but decide I don’t need it thanks to the neurotic computer geek still mumbling behind me.

“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,” I say. “It has been forever since my last confession.”

“Jeremy Barker?” he asks.

How the fuck does he know my name? I could hit the door in seconds and be out of the foyer and at the circle, before anyone has a chance to stop me.

“You’re not in trouble,” he says. “You were at our auditions for the play, but didn’t audition. I’m Father Vincent Gibbs, faculty advisor to the drama department with Mr. Rembrandt.” This is the first time in a while when I haven’t shook hands with someone after an introduction. “I’m sorry if he embarrassed you the other day.” He rolls his eyes. “You know how he can be—loves any opportunity to get bent out of shape.”

“I really don’t know much about him, other than his … you know.” I wiggle my pinkies.

“Oh my goodness.” He slaps his cheeks. “Do you know what happened?”

“Only rumors.”

“Can you tell me one?” Father leans forward to listen. “No. Of course you can’t. Don’t tell me.” He closes his eyes and leans back into his seat, but that smile can’t be drowned and it comes bobbing back to the surface. “Well, maybe you can tell me
just
one rumor.”

It’s harmless fun to be gossiping with Father Vincent, but I want to try and be normal, like the other students here confessing sins. I reboot and try again. “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,” I say. “It really has been forever since my last confession. This is my very first time.”

“You are an earnest, young man. I apologize for my behavior. Continue, please.”

The Reconciliation script fades from my memory. I’ve been so busy and excited and nervous preparing for this important and bizarre Catholic rite that I never sketched a backup plan. Right now, I need a backup plan.